segfault in mksquashfs While Running remastersys 3.0.1 Ubuntu 11.10

[hgoldschmitt]

I've been getting intermittent segfaults in mksquashfs when creating a dist iso with remastersys. I'm running on Ubuntu 11.10.  What's worse is that remastersys doesn't notice the segfault and thinks it's completed successfully. If I run the same remastersys again, it sometimes works but has an error when booting in a virtual machine.

Any suggestions on how to debug this would be appreciated.

[fragadelic]

Squashfs has problems with socket type files.  The only times I've seen it segfault are if you are using the wrong version of mksquashfs compared to the kernel version or if there are socket files.  KDE uses socket files and if you manually copied stuff to /etc/skel then this could be the cause.

[hgoldschmitt]

I haven't modified any remastersys files or skels.  Just using the GUI. The segmentation fault doesn't show in the log.  In the output window, it
comes after "Creating IMS-RAV-UDEV-000105.iso in /home/remastersys/remastersys"
and reads:
/usr/bin/remastersys: line 813: 7040 Segmentation fault $CREATEISO -iso-level 3 -quiet -r -V "$LIVECDLABEL" -cache-inodes -J -l -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o $WOEKDIR/$CUSTOMISO "$WORKDIR/ISOTMP" 2>> $WORKDIR/remastersys.log >>$WORKDIR/remastersys.log

[fragadelic]

Where did you get your remastersys package from?

That is not on line 813 on my remastersys and there is a typo in your line so this looks like a modified package and not my official remastersys package.

[hgoldschmitt]

Sorry, it looked like I sent my remastersys and sources.list from home. I don't see it on the forum, though. I just tried a repost from home and it says I already submitted the post.

[hgoldschmitt]

Looks to me that I got it from remastersys.com.  I'm attaching the script and my sources.list. Here is the output of dpkg-query -l remastersys:
harry@Ubuntu-11-10-base:~$ dpkg-query -l remastersys
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name           Version        Description
+++-==============-==============-============================================
ii  remastersys    3.0.1-1        Ubuntu and variant system remaster This scri

[fragadelic]

You got it from the right place and the script looks ok but where did your output come from?

In a terminal, issue the following commands and post the output.

mksquashfs -version

find /lib -name "*squashfs*"

[hgoldschmitt]

harry@Ubuntu-11-10-base:~$ mksquashfs -version
mksquashfs version 4.2 (2011/02/28)
copyright (C) 2011 Phillip Lougher <phillip@lougher.demon.co.uk>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2,
or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
harry@Ubuntu-11-10-base:~$ find /lib -name '*squashfs*'
/lib/modules/3.0.0-16-generic/kernel/fs/squashfs
/lib/modules/3.0.0-16-generic/kernel/fs/squashfs/squashfs.ko

[fragadelic]

Same as on my 11.10 system.

Your segfault is in the iso creation function.  Do you have genisoimage installed?

genisoimage -version

[hgoldschmitt]

harry@Ubuntu-11-10-base:~$ genisoimage -version
genisoimage 1.1.11 (Linux)

[fragadelic]

You have very little disk space.  I'm wondering if genisoimage is using some temp space somewhere before creating the iso and you are running out of space.

Is this in a Virtual Machine?  If it is, they tend to have their own problems, especially Virtual Box on Ubuntu lately.

[hgoldschmitt]

Its the latest VMware Fusion on OS/X 10.6. I've got 4G available disk space and 1G memory.

[hgoldschmitt]

Make that 5.4 G available disk space after blowing away /home/remastersys/remastersys

[fragadelic]

Check your VM settings.  Segfaults are rare.  They usually only happen if something occurs that is totally unexpected to the program running or if there is a hardware issue like ram,cpu, hard drive.  I am not the author of squashfs nor genisoimage so I don't know how they use ram or disk space during their runs.  I never remaster with less than 15GB of disk space.  I have stopped using Virtual Machines as well due to the issues I've had unrelated to remastering.

I would increase the hard drive size and verify your cpu settings in the vm are fairly generic and try again.

How much swap space do you have allocated for that install?

[hgoldschmitt]

I'm in the process of retrying in a 20GB virtual machine.  I'll let you know if this doesn't work, and maybe I can dig up an old workstation here at work.

[hgoldschmitt]

Thanks so much for your help.  I ran Remastersys on a 20G virtual machine with 2G of memory and everything worked great.

[fragadelic]

Not all programs take into account that you may run out of space, including remastersys and the tools it uses.  Glad it worked for you.